Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Haiti has been
referred to as the nation of NGO’s or non-government organizations. I’d heard that in the capital and areas
heavily damaged by the earthquake that these hopefully well intended groups
were bumping into each other in their efforts to help. Even with my limited exposure to those areas
I’ve had no trouble believing this to be true.
Still, I didn’t think it would affect me or the people with whom we work.

Why? Let me set the scene for those of you who
haven’t visited. We live and work in a community of
approximately 35,000 people spread over a several mile area. It’s rural, about 90 miles north of the
capital of Port au Prince. Just this
year, our community is getting paved roads in town but we still must drive on
dirt roads for a minimum of 19 miles to reach a paved highway. So, we’re a bit off the beaten track. Even with that, there are four NGO’s in the
area with different spheres of influence as well as some pockets of
unrecognized (by the government) missionaries and charities. Those of us who are long term residents of
the area generally try to help each other when we can.

This past week, I
had the fun role of visiting the homes of some of our sponsored students so
that their visiting sponsors could get to know them better. Five donors and I headed out throughout the
week meeting parents and allowing the kids to show us their bedrooms and
homes. Everyone said they really enjoyed
the experience (the families, too).

On the final
visit, one couple was visiting a first grader they’ve assisted for two years. I had met the boy’s aunt earlier in the week
to ask their permission to visit. We
arrived and spent a fun time together, distributing gifts the sponsors brought,
and meeting his extended family. I was
serving as an interpreter for a question and answer period when a pick-up truck
rolled up. I was little surprised at
this as we were pretty far off the beaten track. A half dozen men and women hopped out and
came up the walk. The boy’s aunt who we
were visiting was bristling, and obviously not thrilled that they were
there. She got up and greeted them and
started talking, eventually calling the boy we were visiting to go to the back
of the house to take a picture with her.

Given their
interest in the same child we were visiting, I became nosy/interested. I was curious what their mission was and what
their interest was in the student. All
of them had photo ID’s and T-shirts listing their mission as UNICEF partners. As we visited back and forth, they explained
their mission was to make sure kids affected by the earthquake were
re-connected with their families. I
nodded my head and agreed this was quite noble.
The boy’s aunt had already told me they’d been by before. I remarked that it was great this boy was
already re-connected as he was living with his aunt. (His mom was killed in the quake and his
father worked as a driver in a nearby town)
They told me they come by periodically “just to make sure the boy is
still there.” We exchanged info. back and
forth for a while and then they went on their way. After they drove away, the boy’s aunt
grumbled to me that, “they come by every once in a while but never do anything
for us.” I explained to her what their
goals were, but she continued to shake her head. Frankly, I did wonder why once they
established he was with family why they’d come back, but I have more important
question to pursue. I chuckled as I
explained to our visitors that our little community must really be growing
because now even the NGO’s were bumping into each other.

A surprise
awaited me at home for lunch when I arrived.
I knew we were entertaining some visitors including our cousin, Samuel
who is a supervisor of a large NGO in the capital. Over our meal I mentioned what had happened
and he elaborated on their goals as technically it was one of his teams. Again, a small world, but I did suggest to
him that he should instruct his teams to explain the importance of what they
were doing because the people in the community weren’t able to figure it
out. Ah, the eternal question, if you
don’t realize you’re being helped, are you being helped at all?